[solved] Replace ".." with ","

zaqwsxcde has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hello,

I want to replace the separator ".." (two points) by a comma. I have tried with no success the following commands:

perl -pe 's/../,/' input.txt >output.txt
perl -pe 's/".."/,/' input.txt >output.txt
perl -pe 's/'..'/,/' input.txt >output.txt
perl -pe 's/t./,/' input.txt >output.txt
[download]

Here is an example of the text which I am editing:

1234456..123456 ytrv iuuhygjk 123466..9876

I want it to be changed to this:

1234456,123456 ytrv iuuhygjk 123466,9876

Please advice what is wrong with the oneliners above.

Thanks!

Comment on [solved] Replace ".." with "," Download Code

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Re: Replace ".." with "," by choroba (Cardinal) on Apr 05, 2015 at 14:21 UTC
Dot has a special meaning in regular expressions - it matches anything (except for a newline). To match a dot literally, use `[.]` or `\.`. Also, use the `/g` modifier to replace all the occurrences on each line. `s/\.\./,/g # or s/[.][.]/,/g` [download] لսႽ† ᥲᥒ⚪⟊Ⴙᘓᖇ Ꮅᘓᖇ⎱ Ⴙᥲ𝇋ƙᘓᖇ	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Replace ".." with "," by afoken (Chancellor) on Apr 05, 2015 at 14:22 UTC
"`.`" needs to be escaped in regular expressions. Use `s/\.{2}/,/g` or `s/[.]{2}/,/g`. The former uses an escaped "`.`", the latter a character class containing only the "`.`" Alexander Updated: First variant should be `s/\.{2}/,/g`, not `s/\.{2}//,/g`. Thanks to AnomalousMonk for spotting this bug. -- Today I will gladly share my knowledge and experience, for there are no sweeter words than "I told you so". ;-)	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: Replace ".." with "," by aaron_baugher (Curate) on Apr 05, 2015 at 14:22 UTC
In a pattern match, the period means "any character". You need to escape it to make it match only a literal period. One way: `s/\.\./,/;` [download] Aaron B. Available for small or large Perl jobs and *nix system administration; see my home node.	[reply] [d/l]
Re: Replace ".." with "," by zaqwsxcde (Initiate) on Apr 05, 2015 at 14:28 UTC
Great, the \.\. idea works. Thank you all!	[reply]